The announcement will be made today at Google I/O, the company’s developers conference in New York, which will run through Wednesday, the N.Y. Times reports.
The service, to be called Music Beta by Google, will store considerably more music than its Amazon counterpart. But the two services have something else in common: neither has the cooperation of labels, which means that users can’t do certain things that would require licenses, like sharing songs with friends or buying songs from Google.
But Google’s announcement at this time was a surprise because it’s been negotiating with the majors for months to try to make a deal to team with them on a cloud music service.
“A couple of major labels were not as collaborative and frankly were demanding a set of business terms that were unreasonable and did not allow us to build a product or a business on a sustainable basis,” Jamie Rosenberg, director for digital content for Android, told the Times. “So we’re not necessarily relying on the partnerships that have proven difficult.”
The news caused some media commentators to claim that Google’s storage service would deal a devastating blow to the music business, but that assertion seems like a gross exaggeration. Once uploaded, the music can’t be downloaded, thereby preventing piracy. Sure, maybe the labels could have made a little money on licensing, but it's doubtful this revenue would’ve been more than the pennies they make from streaming video deals. The endgame has always been to sell music, which requires exposure and accessibility. How does Google hurt the labels by providing both, even without a license?
But David Pakman, who co-founded first-gen music service Myplay in 1999, sees the service as a long shot, telling the Times, “This whole upload thing just seems like a significant barrier to wide consumer adoption, because even with broadband it just takes a long time [to upload].”
But Amazon forced Google’s hand, he added. “If you’re faced with another six months of brutal negotiations and your competitor just launched this, you just get in the market and get a lot of users.”
Rosenberg characterized Music Beta as a first step in a broader cloud music service and said Google hoped to continue negotiating with the labels to get licenses to offer other things, like a that much-discussed music store and/or sub service.
For now, users can store 20k songs free, as opposed to Amazon’s 1k track limit. Music Beta syncs activity on different devices, so if users create playlists on their phones, the playlists will automatically show up on their computers.
Said Rosenberg, “We looked at the power of Google to deliver a compelling cloud-based service and essentially married those technologies with what we felt was lacking in the Android experience up until now.”
Meaning the company now has something to rival Apple’s ubiquitous iPhone.
THE MUSIC OF CLIVE COMES ALIVE AT CARNEGIE HALL
That's what friends are for. (5/1a)
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THE NEW UMG
Gosh, we hope there are more press releases.
TIKTOK BANNED!
Unless the Senate manages to make this whole thing go away, that is.
THE NEW HUGE COUNTRY ACT
No, not that one.
TRUMP'S CAMPAIGN PLAYLIST
Now 100% unlicensed!
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